Champion

Between the blog and my column, I've written several times about poet/playwright/composer/educator Edwin Romond of Wind Gap. I'm no poetry expert, but his themes and his words have touched me, over and over.

Poetry Prize

Between the blog and my column, I've written several times about poet/playwright/composer/educator Edwin Romond of Wind Gap. I'm no poetry expert, but his themes and his words have touched me, over and over.

Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher

I posted an item about this when they first announced this bit of odd casting, and it drew an amazing worldwide response from Jack Reacher fans. The consensus was that a pipsqueak like Tom Cruise couldn't possibly play the 6-foot-5, 240-pound Reacher without ruining the movie. I felt the same way.

Jack Reacher

Since we've had a lot of discussion on this blog about whether it made sense to cast Tom Cruise as literary ex-Army MP 6 foot 5 inch tough guy Jack Reacher, I figured I would share this trailer from the movie, which is scheduled to open around Christmas. I figured he needs the boost, what with his marriage going south and all.

Literary Detectives

I got an email last month from Galveston, Texas, novelist and blogger Audra Martin D'Aroma. On her blog, called The Galveston Chronicles, she interviews writers and critics about short stories. Her topic for June is detective and crime stories, and she wanted to ask me a few questions and link to my June 2011 blog post on the Best Literary Detectives.

Harry Potter's Cultural Impact

My fellow blogger Kathy Frederick wrote a post about how she never has read a Harry Potter book or seen a Harry Potter movie. You can check it out here.

I'm the opposite. I just saw the final movie Saturday afternoon -- and loved it. I've read all the books and expect to eventually run through them all again. I've seen all the movies multiple times, and I've enjoyed watching the growth of the main characters in print and on the screen. Certainly that's true of the rousing grand finale "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2."

Walking out, I had the same wistful feelings that I had when the last "Lord of the Rings" movie, "Return of the King," ended. After all the anticipation that greeted each new installment of something very special, it was over for good.

I would argue that no series, for children or adults, has had the cultural impact of Harry Potter. Set aside the movies, which were consistently terrific and very popular. How about all the kids who discovered the joy of reading because of J.K. Rowling's wonderful books?

The equivalent for my childhood was the Hardy Boys, and to a lesser extent, Clair Bee's Chip Hilton series (he was a great high school and college athlete). But the Hardy Boys, enjoyable as they were, were ground out by a syndicate of ghost writers and exhibited nowhere near this level of imaginativeness, and Chip Hilton had pretty limited appeal.

Do you agree with me about Harry Potter's influence? Any stories to tell about its impact on you or those you know? Any Kathy Frederickesque stories about your indifference?

Oh, and be sure to check out the video I tacked on here. It has nothing to do with Harry Potter, but it's pretty magical anyway.

Best Literary Detectives

Jack Reacher, fictional creation of author Lee Child, doesn’t exactly qualify as a detective. He’s an ex-Army drifter who always seems to find himself in the middle of trouble.

But he is a former Military Police major who solves mysteries in pretty much every book in Child’s terrific series. And when the prospects of casting him poorly—Tom Cruise reportedly is looking to play Reacher in the first movie adaptation of one of these books – inspired 84 comments (and counting) from all over the world, it got me to thinking that a list of the best literary detectives would make a good post.

So here it is. These individuals cover a wide range of styles and job titles, but all have been mystery solvers in ways that resonated with readers, and specifically with me. Some have been the subjects of memorable movies, others have inspired TV series and at least a couple still haven't been filmed in any way, to my knowledge, which I think is unfortunate.

In any event, I’m ranking them by the books, not the movies or other adaptations. If you disagree with my choices and have additional suggestions, please weigh in through the Comments.

As a bonus feature, I’ve thrown in one of my old columns at the end. From time to time, I tried to channel Raymond Chandler in satirical columns – I even did it one year for our family Christmas letter – and this was one example. If you weren't around the Lehigh Valley in the '90s, it will make no sense to you. In fact, it may make no sense even if you were here.

Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher?

I think I’m an open-minded guy, but an entertainment story I read today stretches my tolerance for stupidity.

When we were reviewing the best novel series on this blog a few weeks ago, one that came up was Lee Child’s series about former Army Military Police Major Jack Reacher. I’ve read every one of these books, and I can’t wait for the next.

Reacher is a drifter who roams the country with no possessions except the clothes on his back, which he just throws away when they get dirty. He’s a quiet, powerful, not particularly handsome 6 feet 5 inch, 230 pound guy whose size, strength and toughness are crucial to his survival in the scrapes he invariably ends up in, mostly by chance. He shuns lasting relationships, but women seem to dig him anyway. He works only when it’s necessary, which it usually isn’t. He does a lot of his traveling on foot. Drinks a lot of coffee. People tend to underestimate him.

If I were casting this guy years ago, it would have been easy. He’s Gary Cooper. The ultimate man’s man, and one of few words.

Best Novel Series

All this talk last week about the Rapture reminded me that I may be the only person in the Lehigh Valley who read the entire series of Left Behind novels, which dealt with precisely this topic. Any others out there?

Actually, I listened to most of them on Book on Tape or CD, which is a wonderful thing because it doubles my reading output, even if I sometimes use my power unwisely.

I’ve been corresponding with a reader about book series' we like. I directed him toward Daniel Silva’s books about Israeli assassin Gabriel Allon, which I think are terrific. Unfortunately, I’ve read or heard all of them, so I have to wait impatiently now for a new one to come out. I also told him to read the three Stieg Larsson novels about odd heroine Lisbeth Salander and that I’m a big fan of C.J. Box’s novels about Wyoming wildlife ranger Joe Pickett and his family.

He in turn directed me to Vince Flynn’s novels about counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp. I just finished my first, and I enjoyed it. It reminds me of another series, Brad Thor’s books about a similar counterterrorism hard case, Scot Harvath.

Anyway, all this suggested that it’s time for a list of the best novel series’. I think I did one of these once before, but I’ve read a lot since then, and I’m guessing at least some of you are looking for new stuff to read.

I debated sticking only to more recent fiction, but I decided to throw it wide open. I encourage you to throw out more ideas for me and the readers.

I arbitrarily decided to leave out trilogies or two-book series’ in favor of longer ones, which eliminates the Larsson novels, among others. Still, there are many more great ones than I can fit into a Top 10.

Here are my choices. Feel free to add some of your own favorites or mock mine.

Atlas Shrugged, Part 1

I learned recently that they’ve come out with Part 1 of the movie version of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”

The reviews so far seem pretty savage, which isn’t terribly surprising. Of her two best-selling novels, I prefer “The Fountainhead,” but while the basic stories are compelling, both of them suffer from all kinds of problems, literary and philosophical, that would doom anyone trying to render them faithfully to the big screen.

I know, I know. Some of you out there may loosely subscribe to her political views – essentially, every man for himself -- as I did somewhat when I first read the books as a callow teen Republican. With all due respect, a little growing up convinced me that they’re preposterous, even when you set moral considerations aside, sustainable only in the fantasy world she constructs in her novels.

Essentially, she posits that everyone except the hero, the heroine and a tiny handful of others is an evil nincompoop whose views are so outlandish that anything the hero says or does seems brilliant in comparison. It’s easy to win arguments when you create an opponent who is an idiot, but it’s intellectually dishonest. She's flailing at wispy straw men instead of real people and real ideas.

Huck Finn

If you haven't read the reactions to my column about the effort to clean up offensive words in Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," I encourage you to go here and wade through them. They're still pouring in.

Like any writer, I'm more fond of some of my efforts than others. Sometimes there's a sense that you and I have been through this too many times before, as with any Ron Angle column, for example.

But I confess I liked this piece. I love writing satire, and this one zeroed in on something that I believe ought to resonate with all of us. I think it's obscene to suppose it's OK to rewrite any book --and particularly one of the greatest works in American literature -- to make it palatable to modern audiences.

Yes, they just were changing the N-words to "slaves" and the Injuns to "Indians," but it's an incredibly slippery slope. That's what I wanted to say, and I thought I had found an entertaining way to say it.

Imagine my dismay when I began reading online Comments, and later, e-mails, from people who thought I was defending what they did to Huck Finn and that I really wanted to take it further. It's appalling.

Children's Bible

Knowing my fondness for mondegreens (here,here, here, here and here are examples), which are instances of misunderstood song lyrics or other statements, a reader passed along what was billed as a child’s book report about the Bible.

This thing has been floating around on the Internet for at least a couple of years. As with some of the other collections of malapropisms I’ve seen and written about, I'm skeptical about its true origins, but it is funny.

If you like this kind of stuff, you might also try this. It’s compiled by Richard Lederer, whose “Anguished English” series probably is the world’s best repository of funny bloopers.

While I'm on the subject, I'll repeat my favorite joke, which actually is contained in one of those links to my columns. This is self-indulgent, I know, but what's the point of having your own blog if you can't be self-indulgent?

A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons.

The stewardess looks at him and says, ''I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.''

Jean Shepherd and the Fair

I had a great time at the Allentown Fair Tuesday night, and I return tonight to help judge chili. My Thursday column will be about my adventures out there.

The experience always reminds me of other state fairs and county fairs I’ve attended over the years, including the Pig ‘n’ Ford Races at the Tillamook County Fair in Oregon. As you can see here, the competitors gather pigs and hold them as they race around in Model T Fords.

Interestingly enough, the motto for these races has a familiar ring here in IronPig country: Go Hog Wild!

My favorite depiction of one of these fairs came from the late great humorist Jean Shepherd, whom I’ve written about several times before. His story “County Fair!” originally published in Playboy, appeared in his wonderful book, “Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories.” It follows his family’s trip to their county fair in Indiana.

I quoted from this story a few years ago in connection with a news story about a man who was cited for flipping his middle finger at a state trooper. Shepherd's father — "The Old Man," in his parlance, as you know if you've seen "A Christmas Story," read any of his stories or heard him on the radio — has a hilarious encounter with a grouchy cop in the parking lot. Here's that blog post.

Today, I thought I would share the climactic scene in that story, where The Old Man, Ralphie and his little brother Randy climb aboard the Whirligig Rocket Whip after a full day of eating all manner of junk. When Ralphie's mother objects, the old man responds, "Aw, come on. It'll do the kids good. Blow the stink off 'em."

The descriptions are great. "There were brief flashes of dark sky, flashing lights, gaping throngs, my old man's rolling eyes, his straw hat sailing around the interior of the car." Their father's loose change and fountain pen all spin away into the night as the ride gains speed.

Who'll Stop the Rain?

This rain is starting to drive me crazy. It reminds me of the Ray Bradbury story, “The Long Rain,” set on rainy Venus.

Here’s how Bradbury begins the story, which is contained in “The Illustrated Man:”

“The rain continued. It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains. It came by the pound and the ton, it hacked at the jungle and cut the trees like scissors and shaved the grass and tunneled the soil and molted the bushes. It shrank men’s hands into the hands of wrinkled apes; it rained a solid glassy rain, and it never stopped.”

Author, Author!

You wouldn’t know it from the way I’ve been dogging lawyer Lawrence B. Fox in my columns (here’s the latest example) but I really admire the guy.

I met Fox for the first time when I was speaking to the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, an organization of published and would-be authors and others who are interested in writing. He gave me a copy of his first book, and I suggested we should get together for lunch some time to talk about self-publishing, since I had (and still have) some interest in publishing a book of my columns.

We never got together, though, and it wasn’t until we began butting heads a bit in his capacity as Freemansburg solicitor that I learned he had written several more. He gave me a couple of review copies after a borough council meeting, and I liked them even more than his first one.

Truth and Duty

I’ve been off for a few days, and one of my reading choices on vacation was “Truth and Duty: The Press, The President and The Privilege of Power,” by former CBS news producer Mary Mapes.

Mapes helped expose the Abu Ghraib scandal and was the driving force behind the “60 Minutes II” story on George W. Bush’s aborted National Guard duty, a disaster that led to her firing and Dan Rather’s departure from CBS.

The book mostly is a defense of that story and an indictment of CBS for cutting and running in the face of overwhelming pressure from right-wing bloggers, the Bush White House and the mainstream press.

Waldenbooks

I avoid the Lehigh Valley Mall like the plague, but I occasionally have turned up in Waldenbooks to buy a gift. On a couple of occasions, the guy who waited on me recognized me from my picture in the paper, despite my glasses, baseball cap and Canadian tuxedo.

I learned that he was James Clauser when he e-mailed me the day after New Year’s to say the store was closing. With a big Barnes & Noble now in the new wing of the mall and Waldenbooks’ lease expiring, the store — owned by another megastore, Borders — decided to get out, according to the mall. Waldenbooks was in the midst of a going-out-of-business sale when he e-mailed me the first time, bitter at the way it was being handled.

He wrote, "Most of us found out about it in a letter to the Morning Call sometime in October in which a reader wanted to know what had happened to Pasta Bella. The Morning Call replied by stating that the location was to be remodeled and expanded and GNC was to move to the current Waldenbooks location."

Last week, he checked in again. “Well, Saturday is our last day of business. A lot of people have been coming up to the register expressing their dismay. As I said to my manager, ‘I feel like I'm at a funeral and all these people are walking by the casket.’”

Richard Scarry

One of our many blooper watchers out there sent me a clipping and a note the other day. The item was from our Shopping Scout column, where the “Found” items included:“Richard Scarry videos: Becky of Orefield has 12 Richard Scarry videos she is willing to give to Marjorie of Zionsville.” The reader had an arrow to that item and a note that asked, “Are these scarry or scary?” She apparently thought she had caught a misspelling.

Doctor of Love

It's been weeks since I solicited women to review a local guy's book on how single women can meet suitable men.

The whole process has taken much longer than I expected, for a variety of reasons. But rest assured that I haven't given it up.

I'm still waiting on one reviewer, but I've already begun arranging the others into the first of what probably will be two columns that I hope will run by the end of the month.

"Help Him to Meet You," by Jim Miklos of Upper Milford Township, received decidedly mixed reviews from my team of women, and the first column probably will be a broadside from his critics. I warned him from the outset that he might get some pans, but they were even nastier than I expected. I hope he has a thick skin.

Some of my reviewers did like his book, and one even conducted field research as a result, so the second column will be much kinder. I also expect to check in with the author himself again.

I'm hoping the columns will provide some keen insights into the battle of the sexes. Still, the real education will come to readers of this blog, who will be treated to the women's full reviews, as opposed to the scant excerpts I'll be able to squeeze into the paper. I can tell you that they contain some valuable tips for you pathetic single men out there.

Sure, bashing politicians, eating in excess and pointing out other people's grammar mistakes are fun. But I consider the Looove Connection to be my true calling.

"Mr. Roles was waiting to pull out of Hospital Road onto South Sixth Street in White Township on Friday morning when he did 'intentionally flip this officer the middle finger,' a trooper said.

"The trooper said Mr. Roles explained that he was tired of waiting for traffic to move and that he was tired from working all night."

Maybe I'll write a column about this. Setting aside the fact that Mr. Roles must not be real bright, there's a larger question here:

Is it really illegal to flip the bird to a policeman?

Rude, yes. Inadvisable, certainly. Deplorable, probably. But against the law? If I were a judge, I'd throw this case right out of court.

Giving someone the finger has to be considered an exercise of our rights to free speech. Any cop who would chase a guy down and file charges against him is taking himself way too seriously. If you disagree, particularly if you're a policeman, I’d like to hear from you.

I will say that the frequency with which this kind of digital communication happens, particularly on the road, is a sign of the deterioration of American society. And these days, it may be the prelude to gunfire. But that's a cultural issue, not a legal one.

What this story really reminded me of was a wonderful passage from one of my favorite books, the great Jean Shepherd's "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories."

In the story, "State Fair!" his father — “the old man,” in Shepherd parlance — is taking the family to the Indiana State Fair. They've been fighting their way through dusty, honking, radiator-steaming bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles. They finally arrive at the parking lot, where a policeman is directing traffic.

Kid Lit

I wrote Saturday about two authors of books for young readers and the wacky reactions and attempts at censorship by some adults.

Unfortunately, space forced me to leave out a couple of good stories and some positive developments.

Bruce Coville, the longtime and very popular children's book author, told me one particularly horrifying story involving his award-winning book, "Jennifer Murdley's Toad." The book involves a magical toad named Bufo.

Bufo is a large genus of toad, hence the name. But one reader, a teacher in the state of New York, decided there was a hidden meaning.

"She'd been reading an article about some nutcase in California who had been busted because he was collecting a certain toad, bufo-something, that has toxic sweat," Coville explained. "If you lick it, you can get high.

"Because my toad was named Bufo, she suddenly decided this book was a pro-drug message to the children of America."

Alarmed that somebody might actually be accepting her insane interpretation, he called the school library there. No, he was told, the book had not been removed from the shelf, despite the teacher's concern. So that's good news, except maybe for her poor students.

By the way, I'm reading his "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher." It started as research for the column, but he got me hooked.

Top 10 Book Series'

What are the 10 best series of novels, featuring the same characters and new stories?

O'Brian's 20 books about the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, featuring Capt. Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin, may well be the best historical novels ever written, so they certainly make my list.

I decided to rule out such children's series as Nancy Drew (which started my wife, for one, as a reader) and the Hardy Boys and Chip Hilton, my two favorites. They're all pretty dated by now.

I did consider the Redwall novels by Brian Jacques, which are aimed at young readers but have plenty of adult appeal as well, but I left them off. I also ruled out trilogies such as "The Lord of the Rings," since they essentially tell one story, although I suppose you could argue that "The Hobbit" makes it a series. Same way with Mary Stewart's Arthurian trilogy about Merlin, which I loved. Much as I enjoy Carl Hiaasan's books, I left them out because even though there a couple of recurring characters, they aren't really a series.

Several real series I like didn't make the cut, most notably Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels. Here's what I ended up with, in no particular order:

Trout Fishing in America

I have been waiting my entire career to use that title for one of my columns, as a tribute to hippie novelist/poet Richard Brautigan. His books were strange, but I would argue that no one had better titles than he did.

Unfortunately, my headlines have to be three lines, and Trout Fishing in America never works right. On the blog, I don't have to worry about that.

I wrote a fishing column for Friday's paper, and I almost went with Trout Fishing in America anyway. But it was about stripers, not trout, and I was afraid readers would think the headline was a blooper. So I moved it over here.

Are there any Brautigan fans out there? I know lawyer Gary Asteak likes him, but I doubt that he reads this blog.

My wife was really into Brautigan when I met her, which is why I started reading him. Other than "Trout Fishing in America," my favorite, as I recall, was "A Confederate General from Big Sur."

These days, my literary preferences run more to historical fiction. In Books on Tape, I've begun my second run through Patrick O'Brian's amazing series of Jack Aubrey-Stephen Maturin novels about the British Navy in the Napoleonic Wars. Director Peter Weir drew on several of them for his excellent movie, "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World."

I wish they'd turn that into a series on movies, instead of, say, "Saw," "Grudge" or "Friday the 13th." I guess it's easier to make horror movies than epics at sea.

If you've never read one of these, I recommend you start with the first, "Master and Commander." Great action, great characters and really funny to boot.

Analogies

I promised in Saturday's column to share more analogies and metaphors supposedly culled from high school essays. This was part of my request for readers to take a hand at writing the worst possible first sentence of a novel, in a modest tribute to the great Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

If you don't feel like e-mailing them to me, feel free to post your entries right here. I'll publish them in a future column.

I provided the 2005 Bulwer-Lytton winner in the column. Here's the best from the 2004 contest, written by Dave Zobel of Manhattan Beach, Calif.:

"She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight . . . summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp's tail . . . though the term "love affair" now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism . . . not unlike "sand vein," which is after all an intestine, not a vein . . . and that tarry substance inside certainly isn't sand . . . and that brought her back to Ramon."

One of the responding readers pointed out that the analogies and metaphors in my Saturday column actually were lifted from the Washington Post's Style Invitational, circa 1975. Here's a link to the Style Invitational site.

I'm not surprised. They were way too good for high school kids. Here are the ones I couldn't fit in the column:

King Solomon's Mines

One reason I don't mind driving a lot is because I love listening to books on tape.

I got into the habit one summer when I was commuting daily to a Philadelphia hospital. The books -- I think I listened to "King Solomon's Mines" and "The Red Badge of Courage," among others -- made the time pass really quickly. I've been listening ever since. The public libraries have great book-on-tape sections.

Besides the fact that it helps pass the time, it allows me to double or triple the amount of "reading" I get to do. When you're busy, you really appreciate that.

But there's a problem, which is my real subject today. More and more, cassette players are being phased out in favor of CD players. In fact, we just bought a used Camry that has no cassette player.

It's driving me crazy. There are decent radio stations, but there are so many commercials, I end up flipping from one to the other, much like I do with the TV. And unless there's a ballgame on, none of them are a match for a book on tape. I find myself driving our van much more than I should, sacrificing gas mileage for its cassette player.

When we bought the Camry, I didn't think this was such a big deal. There was a slot in the dashboard for a cassette player; I would just have one installed.

But when I began shopping around, I discovered that it's not feasible to install a cassette player when there's already an existing CD player and radio. The wiring doesn't work.

My hope is that there will be a reader out there who has faced the same problem and found a reasonable solution. I notice they're coming out with more books on CD, but the libraries haven't caught on yet. I don't want to wait.

Richard Sharpe

These are dark times for fans of "24," "Lost," "House," "West Wing," "Grey's Anatomy" and other TV series. The only grand finale left is for "Everwood," and that excellent show will disappear for good after next week.

Now we're stuck with reruns, reality shows, rejected pilots and "Pepper Dennis." It's a good time to catch up on your reading.

But I'm here to tell you that you still should be reserving one night for must-see TV, or at least to set up the VCR or DVR to record. Last Saturday night marked the beginning of summer-long Napoleonic adventure, courtesy of British infantry officer Richard Sharpe.